After Mimi's death, Mark and Roger aren't exactly getting along. Mark makes some new friends who become a bad influence. Despite the OCs, focus of fic is on Mark and Roger. 3rd POV. slash. POSTRENT. Please R&R.

This is my second RENT fic. I just discovered this genre this year, and have become recently obsessed with it, and Mark/Rogers. I have not seen an actual production of the play, but I own RENT the movie, and I've read a play script online, I plan to read the script again sometime soon, to make sure I'm getting all the facts straight.

If I ever make an important mistake (if I say Collins is teaching at NYU and hes actually doing something else somewhere elseor something) let me know, or if the characters are very OOC, let me know, and I'll do my best to remedy the mistake. My girlfriend usually helps me when I'm unsure about fics, but since this fic is from a challenge she gave me, she refuses to help me, so I actually wouldnt mind having a Beta, if anyone is interested...not that I know how that whole Beta things works, I just know they help.

Updates for this will probably be few and far between, just to let you guys know beforehand, because lets face it, I am a fanfiction whore: I get around, and most of my time is spent reading…plus I'm currently finishing off my senior year of high school AND taking college classes at the local university at the same time, so I bear a heavy homework load…fortunately my college finals are in three weeks, and after that all I've got is high school, so I'll have more free time to write.

Okay, thiswhole fic issomething completely new for me, but I guess that's the whole point. It's a challenge fic, I guess. My girlfriend, Lillia challenged me. Basically, we were talking and I told her that she's a good mary sue and sap writer, but there was no way she'd actually be able to write something serious and/or smut, with no mary sues and without angsting it all up. She's out trying to prove me wrong right now in the That 70's Show section, but in response to my 'challenge' that I didn't mean to be a challenge, just an insult, she challenged me.

This was it:

"Write a fic that has an original character in it, not necessarily a mary sue but extra points if she is, and she can't just be a side character, she has to be a main one. The fic has to be angsty at some point. Basically, if you don't think I can write something without a mary sue that's still good, I don't think you can write something good with a mary sue."

That's it…pretty vague huh? I'm pretty happy about that, because I can work with this. Not only am I going to write about a mary sue, I'm going to load as many OCs in this bitch as I can. What now, bitch? She made a mistake leaving her challenge so vague. I'm going to write this my way. Basically, here's the summary:

After Mimi's death, Mark and Roger aren't getting along. Mark makes new friends who become a bad influence. Despite the OCs, the fic is focused around Mark and Roger.

Short summary, I know, but I don't want to give any of it away… things areNOT going to stay this simple.

Warnings: SLASH, profanity, drug use, in later chapters smut…basically, its going to get interesting. Rating will also eventually go up. Also, there is the Mary Sue who isn't. I'm new at writing OCs, but I'm going to try my best to have her at least ½ way respectable. Then of course, I could give her some very marysueish characteristics just to piss Lillia off when I manage to pull it off well. Heehee I love making her mad.

So here it is, oh, this first chapter is just a prologue…the rest of the fic is not going to be written in this style, this is like a 3rd POV summary of events leading up to the fic.

Prologue Summary

Mimi was dead. She had gotten sick after the winter and never really recovered. She passed slowly. She was given enough time to say her final farewells over the summer and the rest of the Family was given plenty of time to accept it before she actually went. She died peacefully one night, in the fresh, early days of autumn. Everyone agreed that it was a good death, if such a thing exists.

Roger, having had a long time to adjust, took her passing moderately well. He was still not himself for a while afterwards. Mark took it stoically, just like always. He knew that he couldn't break. He was the rock in the Family, the one everyone else could lean on. But inside, he was going through a lot.

Mimi's death meant a lot of things to him, the loss of a friend, the fact that life was short, the fact that Collins and Roger were going to die… the fact that he would be alone. True, he had Maureen and Joanne and Benny… but Maureen and Joanne were usually too wrapped up in each other for anything else and Benny had become a dick.

Ever since Mimi's death, Roger had been different towards Mark. His previously short temper was even shorter and he somehow managed to become even more withdrawn. Instead of improving as time passed, his new attitude seemed to get worse with time. Although he tried, Mark couldn't figure out what was wrong and any attempts he made to find out or make it right only seemed to make things worse. So he did what he did best, just put up with it silently, but inside both of them had to know Mark Cohen could only take so much.

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